02/07/2017

Baby Boomers Hunting for Work - Be Prepared for Long Process

Inside the beltway, extreme vetting of those nominated for positions such as SCOTUS justice is standard.

However, since the economy crashed and remains soft, that kind of screening for applicants for just about any kind of job has also hardened in the norm.

The time-consuming ordeal kicks off when applicants spot the opportunity online. Now and then there will be an initial quick start such as through Indeed. Just click and shoot off the cover letter. The resume is already on-file.

More typical will be investing about 40 minutes to take one or more assessment tests. They measure everything from attitude to the ability to make correct change.

Those who "pass" those will then be interviewed by phone, including face time, or SKYPE. The next step, if that goes okay, are the personal interviews. Yes, multiple. And even for a $9 part-time (i.e. no benefits) job in a facility serving the unbanked, the competition includes any number of applicants.

The interviews may be group ones. Yes, you are set against each other.

That is an efficient way for employers to only have to describe the job once and to observe interactional skills.

In addition, the multiple interviews could include panels. At a Manhattan university for a position related to compliance, an applicant told me the process was genteel but full of tough questions.

The bottom line on getting a job, any job, is that the search for work has become for more and more the kind of journey mythic heroes take on to grow. Once through that rite of passage, professionals are different.

Since extreme vetting has become business as usual it's unlikely to disappear when the economy improves.